In a Guest Opinion article in Credit Union Times [Jan. 23 issue, page xx], former CUNA president Dan Mica, now an industry consultant, shared his forecast for the 113th Congress. His prediction that measuring the success of the next two years by what does not occur rather than by what does occur would appear to be spot-on. His belief that the major area of activity in Washington will shift to the regulatory arena also rings true. Too bad he didn't stop there. 

Mica's ideas about who is or is not a friend of the credit union industry couldn't be further off-base. His citations of former Rep. Barney Frank, current ranking minority member on the House Financial Services Committee Rep. Maxine Waters, and Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Tim Johnson as credit union allies are hard to swallow. And designating newly elected Sen. Elizabeth Warren–the instigator of the onerous Consumer Financial Protection Bureau–as a credit union champion is jaw-dropping incredulous. These elected officials are at best described as frenemies. Whatever good they might have done for credit unions in the past was utterly destroyed by recent actions.

Every one of these so-called credit union champions has his or her messy fingerprints all over the highly partisan government-interventionist Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. It is impossible for any rational person to conclude that the Dodd-Frank Act and the micro-managing CFPB that it created are in any way good for credit unions. The crushing regulatory burden and marketplace-distorting mandates from this legislation will become painfully clear during 2013. Mica's credit union champions own this disruptive law and meddlesome regulatory agency. If these legislators are friends, then credit union officials never want to run into a true political enemy on Capitol Hill.